LYNN — To support young adults working to make a difference in the community, Mayor Jared C. Nicholson requested that all youth workers take part in a workshop to help prepare them for their futures. 

Nicholson’s Youth Summer Employment program focuses on putting 16- to 21-year-olds in jobs throughout the community, strengthening the level of positivity in Lynn. The program has been active for years, and this year marks the third workshop, according to Program Coordinator Allison Perry. 

“This workshop is to teach the kids financial literacy, career development, and then through the Public Health Department we have mental health and we have an opioid working group that’s going to come and talk to them as well,” Perry said. 

Out of the 350 young adults that are under payroll for this year’s youth program, more than 205 showed up for the five-hour workshop at City Hall on Wednesday to learn more about bettering their own lives in addition to their own communities. 

With social media becoming more and more likely to spread misinformation that leads youth into a downward spiral about their futures, Perry believes this workshop is imperative to provide them not only a place to go with questions, but also information they can use for the rest of their adult years. 

The first workshop, held by Eric Díaz, the assistant vice president and community and partnership development specialist at Eastern Bank, shared how the youth workers can make money their friend rather than foe. 

Díaz explained the difference between fiscal needs and wants, the difference between fixed, variable, and discretionary expenses, and even how to manage credit card balances to maintain good credit, impacting future home buying. It all starts with keeping track of your expenses, Díaz said. 

“Oftentimes you sit there, and you don’t really realize how much money goes out the door. You don’t realize that getting Starbucks every morning and getting that $8 matcha latte over five days, over a month, over a year, that’s a couple thousand dollars,” Díaz said. “That’s the reality.” 

The combination of doing a financial literacy workshop that led into a mental health workshop was intentional, Sydney Denham, Administrative and Financial Coordinator with the Department of Economic and Community Development, said. 

Denham shared that it’s a versatile spectrum of experiences that the youth workers have, and making mental health activities and terminology aware to them can open up doors to being able to communicate about struggles they have. 

“There’s a wide array of what their support at home looks like, and I think having these speakers bring their knowledge and wisdom for people that are out in the field doing these things is just really important to show them where they can go (in their futures).” 

The experiences in the youth employment program have led to full-time positions in city departments, Perry said; however, they do not stop there. They even create lasting friendships that move into university. 

“We’ve seen crew members work together over the summer and then become college roommates,” Denham said. “It builds friendships just as much as it builds that work experience, and they were roommates all throughout college, and now are best friends.”